Surprised at healthy people saying they won’t send dc to school until there’s a vaccination

[sunshineanddaffodils]

I absolutely understand that if your dc has a health condition there’s no way you would put in any situation where they could catch covid. Likewise if you or your partner have a health condition or other vulnerable dc. However I am baffled as to why you would not want your healthy dc getting back to school and their friends ASAP but want to wait for a vaccination. That could be years! As long as the vulnerable population remains safe self isolating I cannot understand why there is such horror at the thought of schools reopening.

I will be sending mine back as soon as schools reopen.
I am slightly concerned but not surprised that some people take a different view of risk, especially as our media, and SM, are not a good vector for evidence-based debate. I am far more concerned about general health, in particular around the crises of air pollution and obesity so that informs my personal risk assessment. Others will have different concerns and thresholds.

To all those planning on waiting for a vaccine just remembered we dont yet hav a vaccine for HIV and that was from 1980s. 4453 were diagnosed in 2018 so it's still very present.

This is a new virus.

We don't know how to treat it.

That, all on its own, is a good enough reason for anyone who wishes to wait to send their child back to school IMO. If it isn't a good enough reason for you, fair play, but it is a rational argument.

This idea that there is risk attached to everything (so you should just do everything that has the same level of risk) is actually irrational. In every risk asse ssment there is a potentially bad outcome on one side and the. And

And the potential reward on the other. How negatively you view getting covid and how positively you view school is entirely personal. So you can't impose your choice on anyone else based on your assessment of the risk and assume they've made a faulty assessment if they differ from you.

To anyone questioning whether a significant number of healthy adults die of covid- and the question is very relevant because it entirely changes the principle of whether covid should be shrugged off as inevitable, like getting flu: buy a newspaper. We don't know how many of us have had covid mildly but we do know there isn't a flu that kills health workers in such large numbers. Whatever the actual lethality, it's bad enough to kill all these doctors and nurses who have safely treated patients with many other illnesses for many years. We know, right there, that this is not something to feel comfortable and confident about the children bringing home from school. And underlying vulnerabilities are widespread.

To the people saying only X number have died, yes this is true. Under 19s make up a tiny percentage of the deaths. But we should also remember that only a small percentage of the population has been infected. If we come out of lockdown, more people will get infected and more will die. Based on data so far, 0-19s have 0.2% of dying if infected (Source: Worldometers). That's small, but hardly insignificant. So if everyone at an average sized secondary got infected, that's 2 dead kids. I work in critical incident response and whilst we do get unexpected deaths of secondary and primary aged pupils, it's really not that common.

We still don't know enough yet to know if the 0.2% is absolutely right or what percentage of the population would be infected if we let it run so there's a lot of unknowns, but what we do know so far should make us pause before dismissing the direct risk to our children.

Risks do need to be balanced, of course, a poster upthread mentioned avoiding honey for under one's because of the tiny risk of botulism. True enough, but there's no real downside to avoiding honey for a year (unless you're Winnie the Pooh). There is definitely harm to children in ongoing lockdown, for most it's minor and temporary, for some unlucky kids it will be more substantial. But it has to be balanced against the risk of harm of going back too soon. Not just the tiny individual direct risk but the harm they will be subject to if a friend, loved staff member or, worse, parent dies from this as a result of it being passed on by schools going back.

They all had pre-existing conditions or were obese. The number of children dead is miniscule - this virus hardly affects healthy children

Of course that is true but it doesn't stop them bring it back to their parents, many of whom will be overweight or obese or have underlying conditions. So no they won't probably die or even get very ill but they may lose a parent or even both because of it. That risk is highest for the teenagers who will have older parents but I suppose that is ok because teenagers are older so don't need their parents

@0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h

How negatively you view getting covid and how positively you view school is entirely personal.

I agree to a certain extent it is a personal choice but one which should be factually driven rather than at the moment emotionally and anxiety driven and that will take time

Sadly healthcare workers are always a casualty of pandemics and epidemics onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/inr.12483

So this isnt actually new on that front

@Piggywaspushed I have been thinking about your lockdown argument and actually given that children were at school for quite a well when it was spreading I think the fact that since then only 8 deaths have occured in England is a very good thing. DD herself came down with it a week after she left school so undoubtedly had it at school given the incubation period.

Criado Perez's book is not remotely irrelevant. It has a whole section on pregnant women and the proclamations made about SARs and the relative risk. It's extraordinarily prescient.

My lockdown data thing was more about data coming from China and Italy as both had aggressive lockdown. And still do. And still have not opened schools as it goes.

I think it’s a mix.

Some People are scared, some don’t want to go back to work, and a kid at home gives them the perfect excuse not to, many want schools to stay closed so they don’t face pressure to send their own kid in, for whatever reason. Some fear, some selfishness, some a mix of both.

It would take years to vaccinate the entire population. They struggle to test 15,000 a day. It would take approx 12 years. On top of the 18 months to 2 years IF a vaccine is made.

Pumpkinpie1

The government have not got a clue . If they did why are they creating over a 100 fake twitter profiles saying how brill boris is doing - see Nhs Susan whose identity was taken off an Nhs hospital website & deleted when exposed

This has been proven to be untrue. Please don’t repeat it as you are now part of the problem. Just because the left say it definitely doesn’t make it true.

@Bluntness100 some don’t want to go back to work, and a kid at home gives them the perfect excuse not to I think you may have a valid point there.

I think you may have a valid point there

Yup. And not wanting to go back to work can be anything from enjoying the time at home, scared for themselves, but as much as many people will be scared, there will also be a large amount where the kids not going back will personally benefit them.

It's funny as many are saying how badly we are doing to other countries and we should be more like them but many of these are starting to send or think about sending there children to school

That's because the countries that have dealt with this better have managed to create a much lower risk situation than we have.

We're in France so I think there's every chance they will be required to wear a face mask and although I'm not entirely sure of the effectiveness of this I think it does at least serve as a reminder that these are not normal times, stay apart, wash your hands, maybe use some anti-bacterial wipes etc.

It is physically impossible for children to keep 2m apart in school. Primary or secondary.

teachers will be at risk too and some will have underlying conditions, some will want to shield until a vaccine is found? Will there be enough teachers to actually run schools?

Judging by what was happening just before all schools closed, with vulnerable and shielded staff off, and with staff needing to self isolate, then in a lot of cases no. The school where I work was hanging in there by the skin of its teeth with herculean efforts by the remaining staff. My children's school had to close early because they didn't have enough staff to be able to stay open safely. The situation would need to be much better than that which I think will largely come down to testing.

The crowds that stand around waiting for the kids to come out puts you at risk.

Judging by the primary where I work this is a huge area of risk. There's a large crowd of parents and carers outside every morning and afternoon. Hundreds of people including pregnant mothers, grandparents and obese people as well as other at-risk groups.

My kids' school are posting pictures of the stuff they have key workers' kids doing on Facebook. No attempt at social distancing at all.

Even with a very small number of children in school, it has IME, been impossible to keep everyone 2m apart at all times.

Also he can get there and back under his own steam (he's planning to cycle rather than take the metro) so you don't have the issue of crowds at the gates.

That's lucky for him. However vast numbers of secondary school children will need to use public transport to get to and from school. My children included. The buses they use are unhygienic at the best of times.

I don't think there necessailly has to be a vaccine -a drug regimen from existing drugs or other treatment options that impoved survial rates or a decent testing, tracing and isolation program keeping infection rates low would also be possibilities that allow more normal mixing levels with lower risk.

I totally agree with this. Going back with things as they are now would be madness and lead to a second peak. Testing and tracking need to be a massive priority but I don't think we'll be able to get on top of that until the numbers have come down significantly. Also, treatments will undoubtedly improve even if vaccination isn't available. All the time there is progress being made in understanding how to treat people who are very ill with this virus.

I am sure that there is a certain irony with people exposing fake news, but the exposing actually turns out to be fake news, and people have been spreading fake news about the fake news.

Also sick of the parents (usually privileged parents) that can afford to have one Sahm saying they refuse to send darling Johnny back till there is a vaccine and such rubbish.

I have a Y10 child who was supposed to be sitting GCSE exams in next few weeks and trying to keep working and facing a huge amount of dispruption. I also have a Y6 child who is missing so much right now. Both could really do with being back at school.

It doesn't change the fact I have another child with asthma, I have asthma and Y10 child was starting process of finding out if they did.

I want the government to make a decisons based on science on when it's safe to go back -and I want to understand how they came to those decisions and what the actual risk to my children and me actually are.

It's highly likely I will send them back when schools open - but not if I think the government has made the decisions due to presure from vested interests rather than science and risk assesments.

I expect that decision long before a vaccine is available - but I do think it will be when there sure the infection rate is as low as they can get it -without completley tanking the economy and considering children and families in less ideal situations -and when some processes are in place to try and keep it low.

I don't think anyone knows yet when that will be and I have started to wonder if they'll need to prepare the population a bit so they are willing to get out and about more.

People do live with underlying health conditions and have no idea till the symptoms start manifesting more and they make a choice to go to the doctor and then the long process of referral and tests. I would guess that the ones that did die without any known underlying conditions probably did have something that make the more susceptible to the disease.

So an unknown number of apparently healthy people could be much more susceptible than they, or anyone else, realise.

My child's life is more important than her education. I'm not sending her to a place where she could pick up CV. Even if I knew she would be totally safe, what about the rest of my family?
Also I'd like to he able to see my parents again - school means isolation from them indefinitely

Some of the ‘healthy’ younger people dying are overweight and obese, which apparently makes you more likely to suffer a huge inflammatory response to the virus.

Obviously there are exceptions!

I'll be really interested to see all the people saying "I won't send my children back till it's totally safe" - will their children still be out of school in 5 years time when the infection rate still isn't zero and there still isn't a vaccine and will they also be stopping their children from attending Cubs/football/dancing? Will they still not be going to pubs and restaurants themselves?

The infection level won't be that low when schools reopen. We will just have more NHS capcity.